Most AccountEdge setup mistakes aren't complicated — they're sequence mistakes. Things done out of order, or skipped because they didn't seem important yet, that become harder to fix once real transactions are flowing. Here are the ones we see most often and what to do instead.

The assistant walks you through your business details, fiscal year, and industry — and along the way it quietly configures linked accounts and tax settings that affect how every future transaction is recorded. Clicking through too quickly or skipping it entirely means those connections don't get made, and you'll notice later when a report doesn't add up or a payment lands in the wrong account. You can always adjust what it sets up afterward — but having the foundation in place is better than building it from scratch. New Company File Assistant walks through what the assistant covers.

AccountEdge is built so that each layer of setup builds on the one before it. Your accounts list feeds into linked accounts, which shape how every transaction posts. When you follow the sequence, things connect cleanly. When you don't, fixing it later usually means voiding and re-entering transactions rather than just editing them. Setting Up AccountEdge — In the Right Order lays out the path so nothing gets missed.

Linked accounts are the routing rules that tell AccountEdge where to post the other side of every transaction — which account tracks a receivable, where a payroll liability goes. The Easy Setup Assistant configures most of these, but if you adjust your accounts list afterward (and most people do), the linked accounts may no longer point to the right places. This is the single most common source of "my reports don't look right" — and a five-minute review at Setup > Linked Accounts after finalizing your accounts list prevents it entirely. Understanding Linked Accounts explains what each one does.

It's natural to want to send that first real invoice right away. A quick round of test transactions first — an invoice, a payment, a purchase — lets you confirm that tax codes, linked accounts, and your accounts list are all working together before real money is involved. Once the numbers land where you expect in reports, you're good to go with confidence.

Tax codes in AccountEdge aren't just labels — they control how tax is calculated and which accounts it flows to. Invoicing without them means either adding tax manually every time (error-prone) or sending invoices without tax and correcting them later. Setting them up during initial setup and attaching them to your customer and vendor cards means it's handled automatically from the start. Setting Up Tax Codes and Adding Them to Customers or Vendors walks through both sides.

It's satisfying to get your invoice template looking exactly right — but if your accounts list, tax codes, or company details shift during setup (and they often do), you may need to redo the customization. Getting the foundation settled first means you only customize once.

Your company file is a single file on your computer, and AccountEdge doesn't auto-save to the cloud. If something happens to that machine — hardware failure, accidental deletion, a bad update — the file goes with it. "I'll set up backups once I'm settled" is how most data loss stories start. Back up before and after major changes — importing data, running year-end, updating the software — and build the habit early. Backing Up and Restoring in AccountEdge covers the how.

If you're coming from QuickBooks, everything above applies — plus a few things specific to the transition:

Years of QuickBooks accretion is the reason many books feel confusing. A conversion is your once-a-decade chance to simplify, and it's much easier to start with a clean structure than to reorganize after transactions are already posting. How to Clean Up Your QuickBooks Data Before Migration walks through what to look for.

Year-end is the cleanest cutover point for payroll. Switching mid-year means manually entering year-to-date balances for every employee — doable, but the kind of work you only want to do once. Mid-Year Payroll Conversion covers what's involved so you can plan ahead.

AccountEdge is modular — payroll, bank feeds, and payment processing are add-ons you enroll in as you need them, so you're only paying for what your business actually uses. Which AccountEdge Plan Is Right for You? maps what's included with every plan and what's extra.